


Unrepentant Fluff (the Attempt #676 Remix)

by Nemainofthewater



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humour, Michael is not a fire squid, Remix, Remix Revival 2020, Set during season 4, general spoilers for season 4, referenced Eleanor/Chidi, referenced Eleanor/Tahani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26483215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: “Fine!” Michael said. “Fine. We can have a ‘cuddle party’-” he pronounced the words as though he was handling some rare and dangerous snake, “-but you’re not allowed to tease me about my fur!”Michael is not a fire squid. He does, however, have extremely soft-looking blue fur.Set during the first half of Season 4.
Relationships: Michael (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop & Tahani Al-Jamil & Jason Mendoza
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Remix Revival 2020





	Unrepentant Fluff (the Attempt #676 Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Attempt #676](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624484) by [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/pseuds/summerdayghost). 



> Written for the 2020 Remix Revival Challenge, and based on summerdayghost's fic 'Attempt #676'.

“Come on dude, it’s basically a bonding activity,” Eleanor said, almost twitching with the repressed need to run her hands through Michael’s fur. The only reason she hadn’t thrown herself forward and started to pet it immediately was that she was a _better person_ now, which meant no non-consensual stroking of your friend’s fur, no matter how soft it looked.

“I agree,” Tahani said. “I think that your fur looks rather dashing, Michael; have you ever thought about accessories? I do think that you could get away with some bold pink beads- as my good friend, Gok Wan told me at my other friend, Stella McCartney’s mansion, ‘You wear everything with such confidence, Tahani, that you make everything look good.’” She gave a little laugh tossing her glorious hair to the side.

Eleanor gave herself a little shake, forcing herself to focus on the prize and not on the scent of Tahani’s shampoo wafting toward her. Jasmine, but not like the sickly-sweet smell that Eleanor remembered from pushy salespeople smearing hand cream onto her arm at the Bath and Body Works. Something fainter and more subtle that screamed decadence and probably cost more than an entire Hen Party’s worth of drinks.

“I absolutely refuse,” Michael said, his ears twitching back and lying flat against his scalp and his fur bristling to make himself look bigger. “Stupid attempt #676,” he muttered to himself. Eleanor could see the glint of his incisors as he spoke, but even the reminder that he was definitely a predator of some sort wasn’t enough to stop the instinctive ‘awwwww’ from all of their mouths.

For one blinding moment, Eleanor was angry, stupidly angry, because Chidi wasn’t here. Chidi wasn’t here and even if he were, he wouldn’t be able to appreciate the hilarity and cuteness before him because he’d gone off like an idiot and wiped his memories so that stupid Simone didn’t realise that there was something wrong with her Afterlife.

She spent a long moment revelling in the anger and then she pushed it back down. Chidi wouldn’t want her to feel like this. Plus, she was meant to be guiding their group of three souls (she didn’t count Chidi, he was the best of them all and would be fine) into becoming better people; something that wouldn’t be helped by the ‘Architect’ of their neighbourhood having a murderous breakdown.

“Dude,” Jason breathed, leaning back and staring at Michael through his cupped hands, “are you like, that monster guy from that one cartoon movie? With all the doors and the screaming and… holy shirt!” His eyes lit up and, ignoring Michael’s offended denials, he started to open every single door in the house and peer in.

“Hello?” he shouted into a particularly promising closet. “Is this a portal to a monster dimension?”

Tahani’s shoe collection did not reply.

“Jason,” Janet said, appearing beside him and accepting his excited high-five with restrained glee, “there are no current portals to Monstropolis in this Neighbourhood. If you would like me to create one-”

“No!” Michael waved his hands frantically. “Bad idea. Very bad idea. Things are complicated enough without bringing alternate realities into this mess. And it’s noisy there. Very noisy. Terrible for my nerves.”

“Awww,” Jason said, looking like the human embodiment of a pout. Eleanor sometimes found it hard to remember that he was the same person who routinely blew up boats/trains/parties with Molotov cocktails, but that was like the duality of man or whatever.

There was a pause as all three humans and Janet (not a girl, not a robot) stared expectantly at Michael. Who stared back at them for one brief minute before he deflated like an empty chip packet.

“Fine!” he said. “Fine. We can have a ‘cuddle party’-” he pronounced the words as though he was handling some rare and dangerous snake, “-but you’re not allowed to tease me about my fur!”

“We wouldn’t do that!” Eleanor said, already moving forward.

“You laughed at me last time you time I showed you my true form,” Michael said, and there was a wealth of hurt underneath his grumpy tone.

“Yeah, because it was hilarious and because I didn’t know you back then, dude,” Eleanor said. “But now you’re my friend Michael, and I’m not going to mock you. To your face, anyway,” she added, grinning up at Michael to make sure he got the joke.

Past!Eleanor wouldn’t have been joking, but present!Eleanor was proud to say that she wasn’t as much as a douchebag as she had been on Earth. Plus, she actually liked that nerdy little dude and though she could totally destroy him, she wouldn’t.

“Oh!” Tahani said. “ _Michael._ Your fur’s so soft.”

Michael’s face fell.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is. The others would mock me for it, growing up; can’t be a proper demon if your fur’s not razor sharp and drenched in human blood. I tried! I went and found those tortured souls and tried to play to my strengths; really get them sneezing, you know? But it turns out that my fur is hypoallergenic.”

Eleanor choked back a laugh. “Is that why you told us you were a 6,000 foot tall fire squid?”

“…maybe,” Michael muttered. “I just wanted you to respect me!”

“We totally respect you, Michael,” Jason said, head nodding like a bobble head as he ran carefully reverent hands over the soft blue fur. “Like, this reminds me of this one time with my dance crew, Dance Dance Resolution, and this one dude, Manny, had to get glasses, right? Because he kept knocking over the mailbox outside the studio, but not on purpose, only his parole officer didn’t believe it was an accident. So he went and got his eyes tested, but was totally worried we’d think he was a geek for wearing glasses and didn’t want to wear them.”

“What happened?” Tahani eventually asked after a moment of solemn reflection as they all considered Jason’s words. Jason’s stories, while likely to give one a headache, were also surprisingly insightful 95% of the time and strangely apropos to the situation at hand.

“Huh?” Jason said, blinking back at them and having evidently forgotten what he’d just been saying. “Oh! The story. Yeah, Manny got his glasses and then we all went to support him by knocking the mailbox over on purpose! Right in front of his parole officer!”

He raised his hand for a fist bump and Eleanor couldn’t help but reciprocate. What sort of monster would leave a fist bump hanging?

“Jason,” Michael said. “That is a weirdly meandering story, and I’m surprised you friend didn’t go back to jail-”

“Oh no, he totally did.”

“-but regardless,” Michael soldiered on, “it has made me feel better. Thank you. I appreciate having friends like you. Like all of you. I’m glad that I didn’t terminate the experiment at Attempt #676, no matter how hurt I felt when you all laughed at me.”

“Yeah man, and so are we,” Eleanor said. She finally crossed the last foot of space between them and gave, after receiving a brief nod of permission from Michael, reached out and awkwardly gave his arm a stroke. It _was_ soft, soft as cat fur and she lost a few moments mesmerised as she ran her hands down his arm. She’d never really understood cat people- because cats were _bitches_ and there was only room for one bitch in her relationships- but petting Michael’s fur she found that she could maybe understand. A little.

“So?” Michael asked after a minute, “what do you guys think?”

“Michael, I _insist_ you tell me what conditioner you use; I’ve never been able to get this kind of shine on my own hair-”

“It reminds me of this time I got really high and spent like two hours stroking a wall in Taco Bell-”

“It is a very pleasing shade of cerulean, Michael-”

“Dude,” Eleanor said, staring straight into his eyes (two feet higher than usual). “It’s _perfect_.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


End file.
